


true to you

by softspiderlad



Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe, Spider-Man (Tom Holland Movies), The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Body Swap AU, Harley Keener is a little shit, M/M, Panic Attacks, Peter Parker Has Panic Attacks, Tony is a good dad, enemies to 'oh god we swapped bodies' to 'what the fuck' to 'friends????' to lovers, harley keener is petty, may is sick and in the hospital, mentions of death/dying and losing people, mentions of depression, more tags will be added, or something along those lines, peter and harley do not get along, peter parker is also petty, peter parker is defensive
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-08-08
Updated: 2020-02-25
Packaged: 2020-08-13 00:40:16
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 16,077
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20165281
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/softspiderlad/pseuds/softspiderlad
Summary: “Friday?” he calls, voice kind of croaky and sounding… weird, but he just dismisses it as a groggy sort of thing, knows that he usually sounds off when he first wakes up, especially after bad concussions. He waits a moment, expecting Friday to respond, then frowns when she doesn’t. “Friday?” he tries again.Suddenly, there’s the sound of a door clicking open, followed by an unfamiliar voice saying, “No, it’s Wednesday, doofus. And you slept in. Again.”Peter’s sitting up before his brain can fully process what he’s doing, eyes bugging wide and gaze glancing over to where the voice came from, finding a girl who looks to be about twelve years old looking at him expectantly. Her nose is scrunched, brows pinched. Peter doesn’t know who she is. “W-What?”“You slept in,” the girl repeats slowly, looking vaguely annoyed. “That’s the third day in a row, Harley.”Did…Did she just call himHarley?-Harley and Peter don't really get along, but when they wake up one day in each other's bodies, they don't really have a choice but to do just that.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> so this is a fic i've been working on for like a month now, and then i remembered that one of the parkner week prompts is body swap, and i was like yes, perfect, now i know when to post it, but it keeps getting longer and longer (i just surpassed 15k words so like?) and i know i won't have it done in time for day eight tomorrow so i'm just gonna post it in chapters instead. i'm estimating it'll be around three chapters right now, but i could be wrong, so the chapter count might change as i get farther along and have a more solidified idea of what the end length of this fic will be.
> 
> anyway, here ya go, enjoy this mess. chapter two should hopefully not take too long to get posted.

here today, gone tomorrow

but you’d have to walk a thousand miles

in my shoes just to see

what it's be like to be me

i'll be you, let's trade shoes

just to see what it’d be like to

feel your pain, you feel mine

go inside each other's mind

just to see what we find

look at shit through each other's eyes 

* * *

“Sorry, guys, it’s a mayday.”

Harley feels his eyes narrow into a glare as he watches Peter give the team an apologetic smile, like he always does whenever he gives the same shitty excuse for having to miss practice. What does mayday even mean? He’s tried to crack the code hundreds of times since starting at Midtown three months ago, and he still can’t make sense of what it could be – all he knows is that it happens on a random day of the week, sometimes two or three days the same week, and everyone else but him seems to understand. Even Flash, who likes to take every opportunity he can to joke and tease Peter (even though Harley’s pretty sure they are friends, because he’s seen them laugh and joke with each other more times than he can count) never speaks up when Peter says it’s a mayday, and MJ, who is on all of their asses for missing practices, always just smiles and nods and lets him leave without a word.

Even Mr. Harrington – who, admittedly, isn’t the most strict teacher and is pretty easy to slide things by without getting in trouble – just waves in parting and turns around to start practice.

“See you later, dude,” Ned says to Peter, voice a little heavy with the hidden meaning of where Peter is going. “Text me, okay? You know the drill.”

Peter rolls his eyes with a smile, and Harley barely manages to suppress a scoff as he pulls Ned into a one armed hug and tells him, “Yeah, man, I know the drill. I’ll see you tomorrow, alright?”

God, it’s like Peter’s going off to war, or something.

Harley shoves his curiosity to the back burner, because he most certainly does not give a single shit about what Peter Parker is doing, and he doesn’t want to waste time (and braincells) on trying to figure out what the hell mayday means, even if his curiosity is insistent and continues to beg for answers. He knows what he needs to know about Peter Parker – he knows that he works for Stark, who Harley admittedly has no reason to hold a grudge against due to it being his choice to cut contact with the guy two years ago, but it still grinds Harley’s gears in a petty sort of way that Peter has this special internship and this bond with Tony that Harley used to, and still could, have, if only he wasn’t an idiot who chose to ignore calls rather than keep talking to the man who clearly cared about him. He also knows that Peter is, like, the smartest person at this school, and he’s heard vague comments about some family issues that he hasn’t bothered to find out more about because digging into Peter’s past feels like admitting some kind of defeat.

What kind of defeat? Well, Harley isn’t sure, but he’s stubborn and refuses to admit that if it weren’t for his own pettiness manifesting in unnecessarily snarky comments and meaningless glares then the two of them could probably be pretty good friends. Like, Peter wears dumb shirts that Harley would laugh at if he didn’t feel the need to push away his amusement while in Peter’s presence, and sometimes Peter makes comments and jokes in class that Harley has to physically smother a snort in response to because their humor is just that similar. And it’s not like Harley thinks Peter is a bad person, because there’s no reason to, but he does think that there are a lot of aspects of Peter Parker that don’t add up, and he thinks that it’s not fair that he’s this super smart, super cute guy who has a bond with Tony Stark that Harley Keener had first. And that Harley Keener threw away. By choice. When he was fifteen and at a low point in his depression and cutting off every important person in his life because life was shit and he was mad.

But. Like. He still doesn’t like Peter. And he still wants to know what the fuck mayday means.

Whatever.

It’s a Tuesday, which means Peter is curious, and he doesn’t want to be.

Tuesday’s aren’t supposed to be special. They’re supposed to be Monday 2.0. He’s supposed to get a Venti Frappuccino from Starbucks (that he’s strictly forbidden from having but still buys anyway) and he’s supposed to drink it all before the first bell rings because he’s tired and needs the energy boost to make it through the day. The day is supposed to drag on super slow until lunch, and then it’s supposed to pick up a bit, feel more manageable, and he’s supposed to have a pep in his step and a mountain worth of homework in his bag by the time he gets home – that time, of course, varying from day to day, depending on if there’s Decathlon practice, if he patrols, how long he patrols, and if he has any other plans scheduled for after school. Sometimes, he’s home by three thirty. Other times, not until after midnight.

He gets the homework done either way, and he gets another Venti Frap the next morning.

The problem, though, is that Tuesday’s have changed. So have Thursday’s. And, honestly, so has every other day of the week, ever since Harley Keener moved to New York, but that’s beside the point.

Tuesday’s and Thursday’s make Peter think.

Harley is a nice person, that much Peter knows, even though Harley isn’t really that nice of a person to Peter. He’s kind of an asshole, actually, cold tone, clipped words, and narrowed eyes that are only ever directed at one person, but Peter has seen Harley interact with everyone else, and he knows, thanks to Ned and MJ and Flash, that Harley is actually a pretty cool dude. He just doesn’t like Peter.

But on Tuesday’s and Thursday’s, Harley is quiet. He still smiles and laughs with people, and he still glares at Peter like his blatant existence is a pain in the ass, but he also spends a lot of time staring at his phone with a weird sort of look on his face, nose scrunched a bit, brows furrowing together, twitching up and apart, and then furrowing once more. There’s always a guarded look in his eyes, but an expectant one, too, like he doesn’t really want the phone to ring, but he’s waiting with bated breath for it to happen.

Whatever he’s waiting for, it means something, because sometimes his phone rings in the middle of class, and teachers that would usually confiscate the device simply offer him a nod when he looks at them with wide eyes, and he’s dismissed to accept the call in the hallway. Sometimes, he comes back in looking lighter, happier, and goes on with his day in a better mood. Other, he comes back stoic.

If it were anyone else, Peter might have asked about what it is already, might have tried for his gentlest smile and offered his support because it’s obviously something important, but this is Harley, and Harley has had a grudge against Peter since his first day at school. Which is pretty annoying, really, because they had been getting along just fine at first, and then Peter said or did something wrong, because Harley suddenly got a sour look on his face and carried a cold demeanor. At the time, Peter had just been worried about what he might have said or done, but then he walked into Decathlon practice and saw that everyone there, including Ned and MJ, were laughing and smiling along with something Harley was saying, because apparently Harley had been given a spot on the team in mere minutes, and Peter found himself feeling a little bit disgruntled, a little bit upset, and maybe a little bit defensively petty, too.

So, no, Peter won’t ask about the calls that Harley waits for every Tuesday and Thursday, and no, Peter won’t think about it no matter how curious he gets, but yes, he will use the same amount of attitude as he’s given when Harley makes a snide comment in class regarding something that Peter is doing, and yes, he will get angry when Harley shoulders past him on his way into the hall and nearly knocks his textbook out of his arms, because he’s seventeen and sometimes people really piss him off.

“Can you, like, _not_ fucking do that?” Peter asks, the ends of his lips tugging down into a grimace as he resists the urge to narrow his eyes into a harsh glare. Harley falters, looks as though he’s about to just keep on walking, and then faces Peter with a weary sort of sigh.

“Do what?”

Peter almost laughs, but he doesn’t. “Keep purposefully running into me like that. It’s annoying.”

The look that crosses Harley’s face is a mixture of something amused and something horribly frustrated. “Hate to break it to ya, Parker,” he says, “but I didn’t do that on purpose. Maybe just watch where the fuck you’re going and it won’t keep happening.”

There’s no doubt in Peter’s mind that Harley does it on purpose, because Peter’s senses warn him about the impact every single time, but that’s not something that Peter can just outright say, so instead he rolls his eyes and tightens his hold on his textbook to the point that he might accidentally rip it in half if he doesn’t control himself soon. “I’m not an idiot, Keener,” he sneers. “Just stop it, okay? Please?”

“Oh, since you said please,” Harley snickers, taking a step back and cocking a brow at Peter in a way that makes him grind his teeth in annoyance. “Look, I’ll watch where I’m going if you watch where you’re going, too, alright? Sound fair? Can I go now? I’m waitin’ on a call and would rather not answer it here.”

It definitely does not sound fair because it wasn’t Peter’s fault in the first place, but he doesn’t say that, just lets out a huff of air in annoyance and murmurs, “Yeah, whatever, fucking asshole.”

Harley looks pleased. “Name calling isn’t nice, Peter.”

“You called me a prick in Chem this morning.”

“Yeah, well.” Harley shrugs, unbothered. “No one ever said I wasn’t a hypocrite.”

Then he walks away, and Peter silently seethes.

“Curfew, kid.”

Peter blinks, surprised, and has Karen pull up the time. It’s nearing eleven. Mondays through Thursdays, he has to be back by eleven thirty so he has time to get his homework done and still get a few hours of sleep. Sometimes – a lot of the time – he ends up getting home late because he stops along the way to stop muggings and dogs running in the street, but that’s to be expected at this point, which is why he’s supposed to start heading back around eleven to make it more likely for him to get home before midnight. He didn’t realize it was already so late. “Oh, shit.”

Tony chuckles under his breath. “Yeah, shit. Try not to stop too much on the way back. Tomorrow’s—”

“Yeah,” Peter cuts in, scanning the area around him for a moment before shooting a web at the closest building and swinging forward. “I know. I’ll be quick. Might actually be on time tonight.”

“Doubtful,” Tony says, “but I’d love to see you try. What kind of pizza do you want?”

Using his momentum to fly through the air for a block and a half, Peter takes the next right, exhales heavily at the swooping sensation in his stomach that always comes with web swinging. Someone below gasps, and he waves as they take a picture of him, trying to do a pose mid-air to make the photo better, and makes a mental note to look for it online later. “What’s everyone else getting?”

“Uh…” Tony trails off, and Peter hears shuffling, no doubt the sound of Tony pulling up the list that he has to make to remember what to order. “Bruce and Sam are sharing a veggie lovers, Pep, Nat and Bucky want that alfredo shit, Steve got his customary three pepperoni pizza’s that no one else is allowed to touch, Thor’s busy, Loki’s still missing, Clint is still on the farm, Scott is taking Cassie to see this new movie that just came out but said they’ll have left overs when they get back, Hope and Hank are in California, Shuri called me an idiot for asking her and T’Challa even though I _know_ they could get here from Wakanda in time for dinner if they really tried, Fury told me to fuck off when I asked if anyone from SHEILD wanted to come over for dinner and a movie, Carol’s on another planet, and I got a cheese filled crust with half Hawaiian, quarter cheese, quarter pepperoni to share with Morgan. You want your usual?”

Peter smiles. “Yes, please. And don’t let anyone steal a slice before I get there!”

“Ooh, refusing to share, Spider-Boy? That’s not a good sign,” Tony says with a hum, sounding mostly amused but a little concerned, too. “Wanna talk about it, kid? Sam’s always down for a sit down if you want professional input, and you know that I’m a very good shoulder to cry on. I mean, usually, anyway.”

Snorting, Peter pulls his way up to a nearby rooftop, seeing an alert from Karen about a convenience store being robbed a couple blocks away. “Maybe later,” he answers vaguely, watching as Karen maps the route for him. “After I eat my untouched pizza. Unless it’s Morgan. She can have some of mine if she wants it, but only if she promises not to yell at me for being late.”

Tony sighs at that. “Late? You just said you might make it on time, like, two minutes ago, Pete.”

“Hey, not my fault someone’s trying to rob a place right now. Duty calls, I answer.”

“Yeah, yeah, whatever.” There’s a distinct sound of the lab doors sliding open and Pepper’s voice, though Peter doesn’t try to figure out what she’s saying as he makes his way towards the robbery. A moment later, Tony is addressing Peter, telling him, “Your pizza’s been ordered, and we’re gonna be starting a movie in twenty-five minutes. Karen, start a countdown. Peter, be safe, but try not to be too late.”

**_25:00_** flashes on Peter’s display in bright red numbers.

** _24:59_ **

** _24:58_ **

** _24:57_ **

Peter rolls his eyes. “I’ll do my best.”

The call ends with a finalizing click.

** **

** **

** **

** **

** _24:31_ **

Harley scrolls through his phone, choosing to ignore the unread messages from the Decathlon group chat as he does so. There’s practice tomorrow, MJ will skin anyone alive who misses it (unless it’s Peter, who Harley definitely isn’t thinking about), and Flash probably sent a meme that’s mildly inappropriate but not enough so to have Mr. Harrington call him out for it. No need to check it when he knows what he’ll find. Besides, he’s just trying to pass the time until he finally feels tired enough to sleep.

Texts are boring. Harley sighs, hits the home button, and opens Tumblr instead.

** _17:26_ **

The robbery is embarrassingly easy to take care of, the gun wielding shitheads instantly cowering nervously the moment they see Spider-Man casually strolling through the door. Peter almost laughs as he webs the criminals up, their weapons discarded to the side but also covered in a layer of web to keep them secure until the police show up and can properly take care of them, because Peter used to make the mistake of not doing that back when he was fifteen and stupid, and the amount of times random people on the street lunged for the gun for absolutely no reason is kind of astounding.

Terrifying, but astounding nonetheless.

Once he hears the approaching sirens, he decides it’s safe to take off, saluting at the cashier that had been held at gun point and only appears to be mildly traumatized from it before making his way outside, checking the countdown briefly and hoping that he might actually make it to the tower in time.

** _12:45_ **

Tumblr gets boring pretty quick, too.

“This is bullshit,” Harley murmurs under his breath, throwing his phone into the sea of blankets that he’s currently entangled in. He rolls onto his side, squints at his bedroom door, and considers getting up, seeing what Abbie is doing, but quickly dismisses it when he remembers that it’s after eleven and, unlike him, his sister actually goes to bed at a reasonable time on school nights.

He looks back at his phone and wonders if he should call—

No, he shouldn’t. He waited all day for her to call. It’s not his fault that she forgot again.

Sighing, he picks up his phone, unlocks the screen, and goes to YouTube.

** _08:13_ **

It’s an accident, really, when Peter starts thinking about Harley again.

Really, he’s been thinking about Harley since school ended, because Harley had purposefully shouldered past him again despite that whole faux deal they had supposedly made this morning. It’s kind of inevitable, Peter’s brain instinctively trailing to Harley eventually, no matter how much he tries to avoid it, because Harley Keener is an annoying curiosity that makes Peter think, think, think.

He’s so busy think, think, thinking that he doesn’t realize where he is, and he doesn’t realize that something has gone horrible wrong until Karen suddenly shuts down, his web shootings stop working, and he goes flailing head first into an alleyway with a strangled, cut off yelp.

** _00:0000000000000000000ERRORERR00000000000000_ **

Harley wakes up suddenly, and the first thing he notices is how bright the lights behind his eyelids are.

It feels like the sun is shining directly on him, too close, too much, and he tries to squeeze his eyes shut but they’re already closed and all it manages to do is make the ache within his skull throb. There’s too much sound, distant footsteps that echo in his brain, a messy mashup of overlapping voices that are far away but still feel like they’re whispered directly into his ear, doors closing so suddenly that it sounds like gun shots. Harley groans, turns on his side and buries his face into the pillow beneath his head.

Instantly, there’s the sound of a chair scraping against a tiled floor, and a hand settles on his shoulder. “Too much?” a familiar voice asks, sympathetic and understanding. Harley can’t connect a name or a face to the voice, but he doesn’t care right now, just nods once and groans again at the scratch of the pillow’s fabric against his cheek. “Fri, activate Overload Protocol. This room only.”

“Of course, Boss,” a cool, accented voice replies. Harley can tell the moment things change, all the sounds fading and the lights going dim. He lets out a small sigh of relief, his muscles, which he hadn’t realized were so taut, releasing all of their built up tension. That’s definitely better. Much, much better.

“Sorry, bud,” the familiar voice says, tone gentle and quiet. “I forgot how sensitive it can get after you get a concussion. I should’ve had the protocol activated before you woke up.” Harley just shrugs a shoulder, because this doesn’t make much sense and now that he isn’t being overwhelmed by light and noise, he kind of just wants to go to sleep. The voice goes on, though, clicks their tongue against the roof of their mouth before saying, “Nuh uh, Spider Kid, you know the drill. Once you’re up, you get checked. Bruce is already on his way down. Gotta get those eyes open, Pete.”

What the hell is a Spider Kid? And did they say_ Pete?_

Like, Peter? Peter Parker?

What the fuck?

No longer feeling all that tired, Harley forces his eyes open, brows pinching together as his gaze blurs, tilts, turns, and then focuses on a face hovering only a few feet away from his. Harley blinks, rubs at his eyes, absolutely flabbergasted. Nothing changes. Tony Stark is still the person staring back at him.

Harley parts his lips, seals them shut, and then parts them again. “What the fuck?”

“Oh, that’s a promising thing to walk in on,” a new voice says, and Harley does a double take because Bruce _Fucking_ Banner just walked into the room and Bruce Banner is smiling at him fondly like they already know each other and, _what the fuck,_ Bruce Banner just ruffled his hair and nothing makes sense.

“What the _fuck?”_ Harley repeats.

Bruce laughs lightly, bobbing his head in a nod, and he’s wearing pajama pants that have the Avengers logo printed over them but he’s also holding a Stark Pad and has glasses perched on his nose and it’s such a disorienting combination of casual and professional that it’s hard to focus on his voice when he says, “Yeah, that sounds about right. That’s one of the worst concussions you’ve had in a while, Pete. You had a real nasty gash on your head, too, and Tony was convinced you were dying ‘cause of how much blood there was. You’re gonna give him a heart attack one of these days, I swear to god.”

Tony looks perplexed by this. “I’m not gonna have a heart attack.”

Bruce quirks a brow at him. “Yeah, okay, sure. Whatever you say, Stark.”

“Bite me, Banner.”

“What…” Harley trails off, feeling dazed. “What the hell is happening right now?”

This seems to cross the line between amusingly confused and concerningly unaware, because Tony frowns as Harley glances between the two of them with wide eyes. He presses the back of his hand to Harley’s forehead, shares a strange look with Bruce, and asks, “Are you feeling alright, Peter?”

“It could just be the concussion,” Bruce offers, though he also looks a little bit wary as he eyes Harley cautiously. “Remember how out of it he was after that one scientist guy threw him into the Manhattan Bridge? It took like five minutes to remember his full name. Just ‘cause he heals fast doesn’t mean the confusion immediately goes away. But, just in case…” Bruce tucks his Stark Pad under his arm and leans against the side of the bed that Harley’s still sitting in, a crease between his brow but a friendly smile on his face. “Can you tell me your name?”

Harley falters, because he knows his name, but they keep calling him Pete and he most definitely is not Pete. Does he tell them? Would they believe him? Judging by the looks he’s getting, he’s pretty sure they’d just assume it’s a major side effect from the concussion he apparently has (had?) and would just tell him to go back to bed or something, so maybe saying he isn’t the person they think he is wouldn’t be the smartest choice. But he still has to answer, and he can kind of assume who they think he is, but—

Oh, okay, no, he just caught his reflection in the window across the room, and it most definitely isn’t him.

“Peter,” he answers slowly, even as a slight bubble of panic starts to build in his chest. “Peter Parker.”

“Can you tell me your middle name?” Bruce asks.

The panic grows. Harley doesn’t know Peter’s middle name – hell, he barely knows Peter at all! Wracking his brain, he tried to remember any time someone might have said it, written it down, tries to think of any hint towards what Peter’s middle name could be, until he finally remembers walking into Decathlon practice a few weeks ago and watching as Peter accidentally knocked all of MJ’s shit to the floor and she had yelled his full name, Peter… Peter _something _Parker…

It started with a B…

“Benjamin!” Harley bursts out suddenly, the memory finally solidifying in his brain. Bruce and Tony both look a little shocked by the outburst, and Harley has the braincells to feel a little bit embarrassed about it. He clears his throat, lowers his volume to something more acceptable. “Peter Benjamin Parker.”

There’s a slight frown tugging at the end of Bruce’s lips. “Answered a bit too slow for my liking,” he murmurs, taking the Stark Pad back into his hands, “but Friday’s saying he’s all healed and good to go. If you’re feeling up to it—” he’s talking directly to Harley now, “—then I’d say you’re clear to go to school. Just make sure to let someone know if you keep struggling to remember stuff or if your head starts hurting. Knowing you, though, I think it’s safe to say you’ll be fine.”

Harley wants to protest – the last thing he wants right now is to go to school, because, hi, he’s in Peter Parker’s body and he doesn’t know what the fuck is going on, he’s pretty sure he’s having a fucking nightmare – but then he stops, thinks.

If he’s in Peter’s body, then maybe…

“I’m good to go to school,” Harley says, and Jesus, yeah, that’s definitely Peter’s voice saying his words, how did he not notice that before now? He tries not to flinch at that realization, just smiles sweetly and maintains the most innocent expression he can conjure. Peter has pretty decent puppy dog eyes, they can be put to good use. Harley is not against a little bit of mild manipulation in this particular situation.

Tony squints at him with something scrutinizing in his eyes, but when Harley doesn’t back down, he simply sighs, rolling his eyes. “Fine, whatever. It’s not like you haven’t gone to school in worse condition. But—” he lifts a finger at Harley, and Harley is struck with how parental the action is, the genuine worry in Tony’s eyes, “—I’m having Friday check your vitals every hour and you know she’ll report anything suspicious to me. She’ll be lenient because of the fact that it’s mayday, but you seriously almost caved your damn skull in, kid. Even if you are all healed up, you make me nervous. Deal?”

For a moment, Harley is kind of stuck on that word – _mayday_. Apparently, whatever it fucking means, it’s big enough that not only that every fucking person at school seem to understand it, but Tony Fucking Start, who Harley definitely remembers being a lot more snarky than he’s being right now, seems to know exactly what it is, too. And what’s this whole thing about healing? Unless they’re highly exaggerated the extent of the injuries, both Bruce and Tony seem to be implying that Peter is capable of healing from a nearly caved in skull and life threatening concussion in a single night.

Seriously, what the fuck is going on?

“Uh—” Harley clears his throat, remembers that he’s supposed to be talking, and manages to maintain the same innocent smile that he was forcing before. “Yeah. Deal.”

Peter doesn’t bother opening his eyes when he wakes up, partially because he’s fucking tired, but mostly because his eyelids feel physically too heavy to lift even if he wanted to. Which he doesn’t, because he’s exhausted, so it’s a win-win, really. Besides, he’s pretty sure he’s in the med bay anyway, because the mattress he’s laying on definitely doesn’t feel like his bed, and he knows that some new beds were brought into the med bay last month that he hasn’t laid on yet, so he knows he can sleep as long as he wants and he’ll eventually wake up fully rested and hopefully healed.

Healed from what, though?

That question is what prevents Peter from drifting off to sleep again, his mind already sifting through his memories in order to make sense of why he’s in the med bay this time. Did he break something again? His ribs don’t ache, his body feels fine, none of that post healing stiffness that he usually has after any sort of injury. His head doesn’t hurt, breathing is easy – everything seems fine. But he remembers patrolling, he remembers talking to Tony on the phone, remembers a robbery, a countdown, and—

And he remembers his suit shutting off, falling into an alleyway, a moment of agonizing pain against his right temple, and then nothing. He must have blacked out after that.

Okay, so he had a concussion, probably, maybe a slightly split open head depending on how hard of an impact it was. There’s no residual throbbing in his skull, so he most likely just slept through the night, and he should be good to go to school, unless Bruce or Helen find a reason for him not to. That depends on how long he slept, though, which solves his first course of action – find out what time is it.

“Friday?” he calls, voice kind of croaky and sounding… weird, but he just dismisses it as a groggy sort of thing, knows that he usually sounds off when he first wakes up, especially after bad concussions. He waits a moment, expecting Friday to respond, then frowns when she doesn’t. “Friday?” he tries again.

Suddenly, there’s the sound of a door clicking open, followed by an unfamiliar voice saying, “No, it’s Wednesday, doofus. And you slept in. Again.”

Peter’s sitting up before his brain can fully process what he’s doing, eyes bugging wide and gaze glancing over to where the voice came from, finding a girl who looks to be about twelve years old looking at him expectantly. Her nose is scrunches, brows pinched. Peter doesn’t know who she is. “W-What?”

“You slept in,” the girl repeats slowly, looking vaguely annoyed. “That’s the third day in a row, Harley.”

Did…

Did she just call him _Harley?_

“What?” Peter croaks again, his heart thundering in his chest. The sound isn’t overwhelming. Actually, everything is oddly quiet – he can’t hear the girl’s heartbeat, can’t hear traffic outside, no matter how hard he tries to focus his hearing. The lights aren’t painful. The faint smell of laundry detergent isn’t overwhelming. It’s… It’s a lot like how it was before he got bit, actually. He doesn’t understand.

“Just get up,” the girl tells him, rolling her eyes. “Auntie Tanya already left for work and I told Ron that you’d walk me to school ‘cause I don’t want him to drive me. We need to leave in, like, five minutes.”

With that, she steps out of the room, pulling to door shut behind her, leaving Peter alone in a room that isn’t his, trying to make sense of something nonsensical, too many factors that don’t like up, his groggy brain struggling to list out what he’s trying to understand. There’s something wrong with his senses, to begin with – he’s not sure how he didn’t notice that the second he woke up, but everything feels dull in comparison to the constant onslaught of sound and sight and smell and touch that he’s used to. It almost feels like he’s in a dream, only, if it is a dream, it’s definitely a nightmare, and it’s a whole lot different from the nightmare’s that he’s used to having, because this is unlike anything he’s ever experienced.

And, okay, second of all – that girl called him Harley. As in, Harley Keener? The only Harley that Peter knows? That makes no fucking sense. Him and Harley don’t even look alike. Harley’s a few inches taller than him, has longer hair, blonde curls, and an oddly paler complexion despite being from the south, In order to somehow confuse them, the person would have to be blindly guessing and therefore would have to have absolutely no idea who either of them are. But that girl seemed to know Harley.

It doesn’t make sense.

Peter shakily gets to his feet, slow and unsure and trying to keep up with his racing thoughts. The room he’s in is clearly that of a teenager, that much is for sure – there’s a few items of clothes strewn about the floor and on the desk in the corner where a laptop sits, random items scattered on a bookshelf, and Peter can see a sweatshirt that he swears Harley was wearing a few days ago – but none of that matters because he can see a full body mirror hanging from the closet door, angled away, unable to catch his own reflection from where he’s standing. He steps forward, sucks in a sharp breath, and steps again.

His hand doesn’t look like his hand when he reaches forward, not as slender, slightly shorter fingers, skin a bit more pale than his. He doesn’t focus on that, just grips the closet door with enough force that his usual super strength would be causing it to splinter in his grip. It doesn’t even crack.

He turns the door with bated breath and meets the eyes of Harley Keener in the mirror.

By the time Harley gets to school, he’s about ten seconds away from ripping his hair out.

Or, rather, ripping Peter’s hair out, because he’s in Peter’s fucking body, and no matter how many times he pinches himself, he doesn’t wake up. And those pinches hurt like hell, too, because Peter is, like, _insanely_ strong. Like, _scarily_ strong. Like, Harley kind of broke two doors and ripped multiple items of clothing while trying to get dressed – _that_ kind of strong. It’s fucking bizarre.

Which is why he practically throws himself out of the car as soon as they reach Midtown, not even bothering to wave to the guy that had drove him (who the hell is named Happy, anyway? Dude didn’t even look mildly content, let alone happy) and barely remembering to close the door with a feather soft touch to avoid breaking it before he’s carefully shoulders his way through the student body, scanning the crowd for his own face because this doesn’t make sense and the only hint of logic he can think of is that if he’s for some reason in Peter’s body then Peter is probably— _hopefully—_

A hand clamps down on his shoulder, pulls him out of the sea of teens and tugs him over, past the bike rack, past a few benches, to a secluded little groove between two different halls that seems to form some kind of makeshift alleyway that Harley didn’t even know existed. He lets himself be pulled along, partially because this isn’t the weirdest thing to happen so far this morning, but also because his ears were starting to ring with just how much louder everything seems to be, the sun feeling a bit brighter than usual, and it’s a lot less overwhelming now than it was when he woke up, because it’s still really fucking weird. Besides, once they come to a stop, it’s pretty easy to figure out who it is.

And, wow, okay, this is definitely weird.

He’s looking at himself right now.

Like, it’s him, standing in front of him – it’s his body, his eyes, his face, his creased brow, his clothes, his frown – it’s him. It’s Harley Keener. Harley Keener’s body. Because Harley Keener is, for some fucking reason, in Peter Parker’s body. And it’s clear that Peter Parker is in Harley Keener’s body because there’s a certain anxiousness etched into his features that Harley doesn’t let show in public, worrying his lower lip between his teeth and barely hiding the panic in his eyes, voice Harley’s but also somehow kind of not as he says, “Please tell me you’re also in my body and I’m not just somehow trapped in an alternate universe in your body ‘cause neither of those things make any sense but I’d really rather not be the only one having to deal with one of the weirdest things I have ever fucking experienced.”

Harley blinks.

Yeah, that’s definitely Peter.

“How the fuck are you so ripped?” he asks instead of responding, and that probably shouldn’t be his first question, but it’s the first thing that pops to mind. Peter’s head jolts back slightly in surprise, an action that is very Peter Parker, an action that looks very strange in Harley’s body. Harley just goes on, elaborating with, “I just mean, like, I broke two doors this morning just by trying to open them. Like, the door knob was crushed and the doors fucking snapped in half like a stick. And I ripped, like, four of your shirts before I managed to get dressed, and you also have a fucking six pack? But not like a _normal_ six pack, either, it’s, like, a _super_ six pack. And, no offense Parker, but you don’t even do sit ups in P.E.”

“Oh, god,” Peter breathes, his eyes squeezing shut, hands raising to sort of press into his (Harley’s?) temples and chest sort of stuttering as he struggles to inhale. “Shit, shit, shit, shit! You have my- _shit!”_

A freak out is kind of expected right now, but Harley still doesn’t really know how to handle it, so he just falters for a moment and then says, “Not yet, no. I’ve been avoiding using the bathroom.”

Peter glares at him, one of Harley’s patented glares, only not as harsh and accompanied by the slight sheen of tears welling in his eyes. “This isn’t a fucking joke,” he hisses, hands moving up to tug at his hair, breathing a little bit more erratic. “Oh my god, I— I need to tell Ned, and— and MJ, they can help, they can definitely help, but how the hell do I even _try_ to approach them when I look like _you_ and—”

“Give me my phone,” Harley interrupts, holding out a hand. Peter stares at said hand like it’s going to bite him. Harley rolls his eyes. “I’ll just text them, say you’re having a meltdown and I don’t know what to do about it, and tell them to meet us here. Simple. Now give me my fucking phone, Parker.”

“I’m not having a fucking meltdown,” Peter grumbles, but he does as requested, digs through the pockets of Harley’s jeans in order to pull out Harley’s phone and hand it over. “And even if I _was_ having a meltdown, I think it’s safe to say I have every right to be. In case you haven’t noticed, we’re literally in each other’s bodies right now, and I don’t know about you, but I kind of want my body back.”

Harley doesn’t bother gracing that with a response, just unlocks his phone (having to put in his passcode and not use his fingerprint, because his fingerprint kind of isn’t his right now) and pulls open his texts. Acting quickly, he creates a new group chat with just Ned and MJ added to it, types up a very vague message about them needing to come to this little alleyway thing as soon as possible, and then turns off the screen before promptly shoving his phone into the pocket of Peter’s hoodie. A moment later, he takes out Peter’s phone and hands it over with a, “Here. They should be here any minute.”

He doesn’t get a reply, but Peter does take his phone with some kind of grateful half nod, though he doesn’t make any move to turn it on quite yet, just flips it over in his hands and waits. A few moments later, Harley can hear approaching footsteps, familiar voice, and then MJ and Ned are both rounding the corner, Ned clearly worried, MJ mildly concerned, and they both book it for Harley.

Right, because he looks like Peter right now. That makes sense.

“Are you okay?” Ned asks, voice rushed and a little bit higher in pitch than normal. “You didn’t text me last night, and I got worried, and I tried to talk to Karen to see what was wrong but she was offline and I called Mister Stark to ask him what was up but he didn’t get a notification about anything so he said he was tracking where you are and he said he would let me know what was happening but I think he forgot because he never got ahold of me and I’ve been worried sick and now Harley just texted us and—”

“I’m not Peter,” Harley cuts in quickly, partially to just get this out of the way so they can work towards fixing the problem, but also because Ned looks ready to pass out if he doesn’t stop talking and take a breath. It does the trick, because Ned’s jaw snaps shut instantly, MJ’s eyes narrowing at him warily. He points at Peter, who is standing there, frozen to the spot, still very much in Harley’s body, and says, “That’s Peter. I’m Harley.”

A long moment passes with no response, just Ned and MJ glancing between them, glancing at each other, and then glancing between them again. Then, a bit monotone but clearly shocked, MJ says, “Explain.”

“I’m not sure I know how,” Harley tells her. “’Cause I have no fucking clue what’s going on right now.”

Ned turns to Peter warily, which makes sense, because he probably feels like he’s turning away from Peter due to Harley being the one who looks like Peter (Jesus, this just gets more confusing the more he tries to think about it), and carefully asks, “Is this a joke?”

Harley isn’t really sure why that question feels so heavy, but then there’s a literal tear rolling down Peter’s cheek and he’s croaking out, “I don’t know what to do. It’s a—”

“Oh my god,” Ned breathes, eyes going wide. “Oh my _god._ How are you—?”

“I don’t know,” Peter says, shaking his head and wiping the tear away angrily. “But he has—”

Ned gasps. “You don’t have your—?"

Peter shakes his head again solemnly. Harley feels like he just had a stroke, because absolutely none of their conversation made even the slightest bit of sense in his head. He turns to MJ, visibly stunned, and asks, “Did you get any of that? ‘Cause I’m definitely feeling a little lost right now.”

“Spend enough time with them, you learn their weird mind reading shit,” MJ tells him, shrugging. “In summary, today is a mayday, Peter doesn’t know what to do about it, you have Peter’s abilities, and everyone’s kind of freaking the hell out. Now can someone _please_ explain to me how this is possible?”

“Abilities?” Harley repeats, features scrunching in confusion. “Like, the fact that he’s secretly ripped?”

MJ looks vaguely amused by that. “I’m pretty sure they’re more worried about the Spider-Man thing.”

“Spider-M—?” Harley stops, blinking once. Tony had called him Spider Kid this morning. Peter is insanely strong. Everything is bright, and loud, and too much. He turns to Peter with wide, owlish eyes. Peter looks like he wants to be pushed off of a very tall cliff. “You’re _Spider-Man?!”_

“Technically,” Ned cuts in, sounding a little nervous, “he’s not Spider-Man right now. You are.”

Harley parts his lips, hesitates, then lets out a long, tense sigh. “I need a fucking nap.”

There’s a strangled sort of noise that comes from Peter that could be a laugh, but it lacks humor, sounds a bit dead and dull and lacking. It makes Harley wince when he hears it. It’s his laugh, his voice, but also not. Harley’s trying really hard not to think about it, but it’s impossible not to think about.

“No one answered my question,” MJ says, lifting her brows expectantly. “How is this possible?”

“I didn’t know it was,” Peter tells her, sounding kind of sheepish, as if he’s expected to have all the answers. Then again, Harley just found out that Peter Fucking Parker is Spider-Man, so maybe Peter’s also, like, the man with the plan, or whatever. Maybe he knows a lot of shit. He’s apparently a superhero, after all. “I just- I don’t know. I woke up, and I thought I was in the med bay, but then I wasn’t. I was in his room, in his body, and everything was so fucking quiet and it felt so dark and I don’t—”

MJ sets a hand on Peter’s (Harley’s?) shoulder. “Breathe, Spider Kid,” she tells him, partially teasing tone despite the shine of genuine worry in her eyes. Peter sucks in a harsh breath, lets it out shakily, and then glares at her in a way that’s not even a little convincing. MJ grins. “What? Stark can call you that but I can’t?”

“No,” Peter deadpans, but he smiles a bit, too. “I don’t even like it when he calls me that.”

Before MJ can respond, Ned speaks up, saying, “Uh, I don’t mean to, like, bring the mood back down, but shouldn’t we, like, try to figure out what to do about this? Because, like, if this is legit, then this is… this is fucking huge. I don’t- I mean, can you even go to school like this? Acting like each other?”

Harley looks at Peter, who looks back at him, and it feels like he’s looking in a mirror because he’s literally looking at himself but it’s so weird and so fucked and he can still hear everything and trying to go to school like this sounds like absolute hell on earth. Thankfully, Peter seems to agree, because his lips tug down into a frown, and he looks back at Ned with a quiet, “I don’t think I can.”

“I definitely can’t,” Harley says, shaking his head. “Knowing why everything is so loud is cool, but it doesn’t make anything less loud. How do you deal with this, anyway? It’s so much, all the time.”

“You get used to it,” Peter tells him.

MJ rolls her eyes. “He gets sensory overloads. They’re not pretty.”

Peter looks mildly betrayed by her spilling all his secrets, but also seems to not care enough to tell her to stop. Ned glances at Peter, then at Harley, then back at Peter. “Well, I mean, you leave school early sometimes, anyway, right? You’ve skipped on these days. It wouldn’t be unusual. I don’t know if Harley can get away with just skipping, but—”

“I can,” Harley interrupts, jaw tightening a bit. “No one’ll notice.”

There’s a small moment of nothing, before Peter asks, “Where do we even go, though? I can’t just—”

“Peter,” MJ cuts in, brows raising slightly as she looks at him. “She won’t know the difference and you know you’ll regret it if you skip out on today because of this. Make it work.”

Something crestfallen and pained crosses Peter’s features then, brows twitching up, then together, then up again, jaw a little bit dropped, all the air leaving his lungs. It looks like he’s about to protest – though what he’d be protesting, Harley doesn’t really know – but then he just sighs, squeezes his eyes shut, and then opens them again with a nod. “Okay,” he says. “Yeah. You’re right. That’s- I’ll do that, then.”

Ned looks kind of sick to his stomach, but MJ just smiles slightly. Harley is about two seconds away from demanding to know what the fuck they’re talking about, but then MJ is already facing him with a gardened look, narrowed eyes and a steeled over gaze. “I like you, Keener,” she tells him, “but don’t think we don’t know how shitty you treat Peter. He told us not to talk to you about it, so we haven’t, but now you’re both in a situation where you’re about to learn a lot about Peter that he didn’t want you to know, and if I hear that you said some dumb shit during any of this, I will not hesitate to chop your dick off the second you’re back in your own body. Is that fucking clear?”

Harley parts his lips, eyes going a little wide, and can’t help but wonder how she manages to be so damn intimidating with such a simple look and tone of words. “Yeah,” he chokes out. “Crystal.”

“Good,” MJ says, nodding. She steps back to stand by Ned, who is already chewing nervously on his thumbnail and glancing between the two of them with a restless, nervous sort of energy, shifting his weight from foot anxiously. MJ settles a hand on his shoulder, which only seems to help a little bit, before asking, “Do you want one of us to go with you? I won’t get in trouble for skipping, if you—”

“No,” Peter interrupts her, shaking his head, even though his features are pinched in a way that makes it clear he wants to say yes. “You have that presentation today, right? You can’t miss that for this.”

In Harley’s opinion, this is a big enough issue to have MJ miss a mere presentation over, but hey, he’ll let it slide. Besides, there’s such a heavy sense of guilt written in Peter’s eyes (which, okay, Harley keeps forgetting that he’s not looking in a mirror, and it’s not getting any less confusing) at the mere idea of MJ prioritizing him over herself that Harley is kind of grateful when MJ doesn’t fight it, because he thinks this already pretty shitty situation would be worsened by having to deal with that look the whole time.

The bell goes off for first period, the sound so loud in Harley’s ears that he physically flinches away from the noise, and Ned looks like he wants to hug both of them as he takes a step back, gaze flickering back and forth rapidly before he simply says, “Keep me updated,” before him and MJ leave the little alleyway and head towards the school, already late for class. Harley frowns, crosses his arms over his chest and turns his gaze over to Peter, who is staring after his friend in blatant distress.

“So, what’s the plan?” Harley asks, because he didn’t really process a single word outside of being threatened by MJ and he’s not really sure where to go from here. Peter sighs, squeezes his eyes shut, and then forces them open again as he brings up his phone and puts in the passcode to unlock it. Harley’s frown deepens, confused. “What are you doing?”

“Making sure Mister Stark doesn’t hear about me missing class and try to track my location,” Peter tells him simply, not bothering to elaborate further from that as he taps at his screen. Harley blinks once, a little taken back by that response – yeah, sure, he witnessed first hand how oddly parental Tony acts towards Peter, which kind of makes his stomach clench because Tony never acted anything less than sarcastic and snarky with Harley, back when Harley still answered his calls, but that makes sense, in a way, if Peter is Spider-Man. One thing Harley’s learned since moving to New York is that Spidey and Iron Man are quite the team – if Spidey’s in trouble, the red and gold suit is always close by to save his ass. Harley can kind of connect the dots, can remember Tony’s panic attacks and clear sense of guilt, and he can assume that Tony must care for Peter because Peter is Spidey and Spidey is Iron Man’s responsibility. That makes some semblance of sense. But Tony tracking Peter’s phone because he misses class? That doesn’t make a whole lot of sense. Kids skip class sometimes, Surely, Tony knows not to assume the worst just because his teenage superhero decided not to deal with calculus for a day.

But Harley doesn’t point that out, because that’s a whole can of worms that will do nothing to help their current predicament, so he just stands there and waits until Peter lowers his phone, shutting off the screen and shoving the device in his pocket before shouldering past Harley, making his way out of the alley and turning away from the school. Harley jogs after him, finding it a hundred times easier to catch up than he would in his own body, and grabs Peter by the arm to stop him. He still can’t really make sense of how strong Peter is, though, because he uses a bit of Peter’s strength and squeezes a bit too hard, making Peter yelp as he spins around and rips his arm free from Harley’s grasp. Harley stops, holds his hands up in some kind of surrender, and says, “Shit, sorry, sorry! I just- where are you going?”

Peter doesn’t look angry, which Harley thinks is odd – he most definitely just left a pretty nasty bruise that’ll be showing up within the hour, but it is Peter’s strength, after all, and it’s so strange how he looks almost guilty on Harley’s behalf. Harley gets hit with the reminder that this is temporary for him, but this is what Peter has every day, and is the sun always this bright in Peter’s eyes?

Christ, Harley doesn’t understand how Peter isn’t always wearing sunglasses when he’s outside.

“Hospital,” Peter tells Harley, then turns around and starts walking again.

“Wh- are you fucking serious?!” Harley asks, having to catch up with him a second time, though he keeps his hands to himself in order to prevent another bruise. “I don’t think doctor’s can do shit for this.”

Peter shakes his head, keeps his eyes forward and leads the way around a corner. “We’re not going for that,” he murmurs, but Harley can make out each and every syllable with Peter’s enhanced hearing. “You heard MJ, right? What she said today is?”

Harley heard, all right, but he didn’t process, so it takes him a moment to think back on the conversation, thinking past the dick chopping threat and the general overwhelming confusion that’s been bleeding into Harley’s veins since the moment he woke up this morning, but then it clicks, and he feels the slightest bit annoyed when he says, “She said it’s a mayday.”

“Exactly,” Peter nods, like that’s all the explanation he needs.

“No, back up—I don’t know what the fuck mayday means,” Harley tells him, brows twitching together. “You can’t just act like that answers all my questions when it still makes no fucking sense! Seriously, I’ve heard you say this same fucking thing dozens of times since I moved here and everyone seems to know what you’re talking about but I have no fucking clue. I even tried, like, looking up other meanings of the word, you know? To see if maybe I’m just a fucking idiot, but it’s just a distress signal, meant for, like, pilots and shit, so it still doesn’t add up, so maybe just fucking tell me what the _fuck_ we’re going to a fucking _hospital_ for instead of spouting out this mayday _bullshit—”_

“Shut the fuck up!” Peter interrupts, spinning around suddenly and shoving a finger harshly into Harley’s chest, and Harley is stunned to see his features twisted up in anger, tears in his eyes. He seals his lips shut, takes a slight step back with wide eyes, and watches as Peter pulls back his hand like it’s been burned, curls his fingers into fists at his side, and takes a deep, shaky breath. “It’s not—“ he stops, eyes squeezing shut. “It’s two words. Not one. It’s—”

Harley doesn’t understand, but Peter looks about ten seconds away from crumpling in on himself, so he just holds his hands out and tries to take a slight step forward. “You don’t have to tell me,” he says, because he’s not an asshole, even though he knows he kind of treats Peter like one. “We can just go.”

This doesn’t seem to ease Peter in the slightest, but he juts his head down in some kind of nod and then turns forward to keep walking, Harley trialing behind him with a whole new ball of dread in his stomach.

Peter doesn’t want to, but he gives a run down of what to expect when they’re a few blocks away. “They’ll try to stop me from going in,” he says, “but just tell them I’m with you and they’ll let me by. That’s how I bring Ned and MJ sometimes, and Tony and Pepper, before the staff were able to add them to the list of people who aren’t family that are allowed to visit.” Harley seems confused when he says this, but Peter just swallows the lump in his throat and goes on. “When we walk in, she’s gonna want to hold your hand, so go stand on the left side of the bed and let her, and when she asks how school’s going, tell her you aced your Chem exam, and smile when she says she’s proud. And, uh- you’ll have to tell her that you can’t stay for too long today, and- and she might look disappointed for a second, but then she’ll say that it’s okay, that she understands, and she’ll give you a folded up piece of paper, and you- you have to put it in your pocket, and promise her to deliver it safely, and kiss her on the cheek before saying you love her, okay? And she probably won’t even notice that I’m there, but if she does, just- just say you made a new friend who wanted to meet her, but that we have somewhere to go. Okay?”

There’s a few stray tears that Peter wipes away while he’s talking, and Harley has a somewhat blank expression on his face, like it’s starting to dawn on him what’s about to happen. “Yeah, got it,” he says, follows Peter through the front doors, turns left, gets into an elevator that Peter doesn’t hesitate to push a floor level on, clearly familiar with this path. There’s an ache in the center of his chest, a painful twist of his gut and a heavy thumping in his heavy heart, and he’s thankful that Harley doesn’t speak up for the entirety of the elevator ride because he’s kind of fighting off a constant, bristling panic attack.

The smell of a hospital always makes Peter feel sick, but he can see the way Harley lurches when the elevator opens. “Enhanced senses are a bitch,” he manages to say, almost sounding normal.

“I feel like someone just shoved a rag of bleach up my nose,” Harley responds, features scrunched up in distaste. Peter lets himself be distracted for a second by pondering if that’s really how he looks when he gets bombarded by a strong smell, and then he lets himself chuckle a bit, and then he grounds himself to reality because they’re here for a specific reason and he can’t lose focus.

He refuses.

Silently, he leads them out of the elevator, trying not to look like Harley is the one following like a lost puppy because Harley looks like Peter and Peter is supposed to know where he’s going. When they get stopped—because Peter knew they would—Harley only stammers over his words a little bit before he tells her what Peter told him to say, and the nurse (Jess, he knows) gives him a soft sort of smile before ducking her head in a nod and letting them through without another word. Harley looks a bit perplexed by how simple that was, but he doesn’t speak up until they read room 301, until Peter freezes outside of the door, and even then, he just clears his throat and murmurs, “Who’re we here to see, Peter?”

Peter wishes he had his Spidey strength as he curls his hands into fists at his side—usually, the painful bite of his nails to his palm helps to ground him, but in Harley’s body he doesn’t have the strength to make it sting as much as he wishes he could. Swallowing the lump in his throat, he barely manages to whisper, “Aunt May,” before carefully nudging Harley forward as a silent indication to open the door. After a few seconds of nothing, he does, reaching out and twisting the knob to get inside.

The room is familiar in a twisted, knife in gut, choking back tears sort of way, and he can never tell if he should be relieved or not when he walks in and nothing has changed since his last visit. Harley doesn’t freeze in the doorway, but he does falter—Peter understands why, because this room always smells of an off combination of pleasantly floral perform and the strong stench of cleaning chemicals and medicine. Peter remembers feeling sick to his stomach his first few visits, so it’s no surprise when he looks over and sees that Harley looks a little queasy, but there’s not really much that Peter can do to help with the smell, so he just offers the slightest of sympathetic smiles before stepping further into the room, making sure to stay close to the wall, away from the bed. He doesn’t look at her, but he hears her, hears the smile in her voice when she turns her head and says, “Hey, honey! How was school today?”

Harley looks at Peter for a quick moment, wide eyed and clearly unsure of what to do, but Peter isn’t paying attention, is too busy flinching away at the croak on May’s voice, how weak her words sound, knowing that she’s getting worse and worse and even the help of Tony and Pepper paying for the best treatment possible isn’t going to be able to help. The mere thought makes him sink he teeth into his lower lip to bite back a sob, and maybe that’s what does it—seeing Peter looking so close from toppling off the edge of a cliff, mere moment away from bursting into tears. Maybe that’s what solidifies what Peter told Harley, because he doesn’t look so unsure anymore, not as he moves to the left side of the bed and lets her hold his hand as he softly tells her, “It was good. I aced my test in Chem.”

“That’s good!” May says, and now Peter has to look, because he knows he’ll regret it if he doesn’t. He moves slow, lifts his head to watch, and something in his chest cracks because May is holding Harley’s hand and smiling at Harley and Peter hates having to stand back in the corner and do nothing, but there’s no other choice—if he steps forward, she won’t recognize him at Peter. She’ll only see a stranger.

He has to cover his mouth with both shaking hands to stop himself from audibly crying. May doesn’t notice him in the corner, only has eyes for Harley, who she thinks is her nephew, and Peter does nothing but watch and listen as Harley expertly maneuvers through the information Peter gave him before. He smiles when she says she’s proud of him, and he sounds regretful when he tells her that he can’t stay for long because of a school project he needs to work on, and May is so out of it that she doesn’t notice the time on the clock, doesn’t realize that it’s just barely past nine in the morning on a school day—she just nods and smiles and squeezes his hand and gives him a folded up piece of paper, which Harley carefully puts in his front pocket and softly swears to deliver safely, and then he kisses her cheek and tells her he loves her and Peter follows him out of the room on wobbly knees with tears drying on his face.

“What now?” Harley asks, once the door is securely shut behind them.

Peter takes a deep breath, holds it for a moment, then lets it out shakily. “I don’t know.”


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> lol i posted chapter one in august, does anyone still remember this shit??
> 
> i changed the chapter count to 4 because this chapter is like 6k words, so then the third chapter will also be about 6k words and the last chapter will be around 10k words, so about 30-40k words total depending on how things so. yeet.

“So, where are your parents?”

“Gone,” Peter says, leaning against the counter in his and May’s apartment with a forced sense of ease.

Harley nods from where he’s sitting at the dining room table, looking around with a curious crease between his furrowed brows. “Gone as in out of the house, or gone as in out of the picture?”

Peter purses his lips. “Gone as in dead.”

That makes Harley blink a bit, shocked. “Oh. So, Aunt May is…?”

“My last living relative. By marriage, not by blood. She was married to my dad’s brother, who is also gone. Gone as in dead,” Peter answers. There’s no reason to bother lying, really—that’s why MJ had been so open earlier, why Peter is being honest now. Harley is in Peter’s body. Lying just feels pointless.

“And when I thought you were saying mayday…” Harley trails off.

Focusing his gaze on the ceiling with some kind of shrug, Peter tells him, “May days are the days I visit her. Sometimes they’re planned, like today. Sometimes they’re last minute, because the doctors aren’t sure how long she has and they call me whenever it looks like it might be her last day. They’ve all been false alarms so far, but it won’t be one of these days, so I always go when they call.”

There’s a lapse of silence, where Peter stares at the cracks in the ceiling while Harley traces over the tiled floor, until Harley lets out a long sigh and asks, “I’m guessing Spider-Man is why you know Stark?”

A change in topic, sure, but something that Peter was expecting to be questioned about eventually. “Sort of,” he says. “It’s how I met him, yeah, but it’s not why I still know him. Pepper and Tony are going to adopt me, after May… you know. After she dies. So, yeah, Spider-Man is why I met him, but that’s just a part of it. A pretty small part, too, if I’m being completely honest.”

“Oh.” Now there’s an almost bitter sort of twist in Harley’s voice, a tone that sounds so odd with Peter’s voice but still seems so familiar, so easily identifiable as Harley’s tone of frustration. In normal circumstances, it grates against Peter’s nerves. Now, it makes everything bubble over the edge.

“What about you, huh?” Peter asks, a blatant venomous drip to his words as he narrows his eyes into a glare, leveling Harley a thoroughly pissed off look.

Harley, on his part, only looks mildly taken back by this. “What _about_ me?”

“You don’t live with your parents, I’ve already figured that out,” Peter says, an almost matter of fact tone to his voice as he quirks a brow and tries not to grimace. “I met Abbie, too, had to walk her to school and lie and say I had a migraine because she could tell something was off. I didn’t meet your Auntie Tanya, but judging by the fact that Abbie didn’t say _Uncle _Ron, I’m guessing he’s just a boyfriend or something, right? So, yeah, what about you? Where are your parents? What’s your story, Keener?”

For a moment, all Harley does is stare at him with a blank sort of expression, until, with a deadpan sort of tone, he answers, “My dad left when I was seven, haven’t seen or heard from him since. My mom almost overdosed four months ago and has been in intensive rehab ever since. My sister and I are staying with Auntie Tanya because the rest of our family didn’t want to take us in, and when Ma gets out, she’s gonna move to New York and hopefully stay sober and get a job so we can get our own place, ‘cause she knows if she stays in Tennessee, she’ll relapse as soon as she’s out. That satisfy you, Parker?”

It doesn’t, not even a little bit—sure, Harley’s always an asshole to him, but Peter knows it’s not how he is with everyone else, knows it’s just some personal sort of hatred, and even if Harley was just an asshole, Peter isn’t one that takes satisfaction in others despair. So, with a sigh, he just says, “Sorry.”

“Sorry for what?” Harley huffs out some kind of laugh, the sound mostly bitter but, somehow, a little bit amused, too. “I was digging, you did the same. Now we’re even.”

“I don’t like digging,” Peter says, frowning. “It’s not my business. I’m sorry for being a dick. I’m just… I’m stressed, trying to figure out what the hell is happening right now and how we’re supposed to fix it.”

“Well, don’t expect me to be much help,” Harley tells him. “I have no experience in this… weird stuff happening department. All my expertise is in very non-fairy tale shit. Only thing I can think of is, like, tracking down a fucking wizard, or something, but I’m pretty sure those aren’t real, so—”

Peter lurches, eyes going wide. “That’s it!”

Harley looks at him for a moment, frowning. “What?”

“Wizard,” Peter repeats, scrabbling for his phone. “Oh my god, I’m an idiot. We need a wizard.”

It looks like Harley’s taken a large bite out of an extremely sour lemon while he stares at Peter as if he’s grown two heads. “Please tell me you’re kidding. I know superheroes are a thing, but _wizards?_ Parker—”

Peter just shakes his head, tapping his passcode in and quickly searching for the proper contact in his phone. “He’s not actually a wizard,” he assures Harley, seeing the way Harley starts to relax at those words. “He’s a sorcerer. And a doctor. And he has a sentient cloak that always sneaks me cookies.”

And now it looks like Harley’s contemplating checking Peter into a mental hospital. “Do you even hear yourself right now? That’s not—who are you texting? Stop it. Peter, _stop,_ you sound insane.”

**_Are you busy today?_** Peter types, sending the message instantly. “Just trust me on this, okay?”

_“Trust you?!”_ Harley repeats, jumping to his feet. “You’re talking about _sorcerers,_ Peter! How am I—”

Peter’s phone buzzes. **_Extremely,_** the text says.

**_Can I stop by?_** Peter sends anxiously, followed by: **_It’s an emergency._** And then: **_Don’t tell Tony._**

Almost instantly, he gets a response. **_What’s going on?_** it says.

“—and that doesn’t even begin to scratch the surface on the fact that you’re fucking _Spider-Man!_ I’ve been going to school with Spider-Man for _three months!_ Like, what the _fuck?_ And, fucking—”

**_You won’t believe me unless you see for yourself,_** Peter sends.

Less then fifteen seconds later: **_It must be bad if you want to keep it from Stark._**

Peter almost snorts. **_Bad is definitely a word for it. Can you help? Please? Without telling Tony?_**

“—you’re not even listening to me, I can tell you’re not listening to me, which is—which is fucking rude as fuck because I’m literally you right now, like—like, I’m—_I’m in you_—wait, that sounds—that sounds sexual, so I’m not gonna—but you know what I mean, or you _would_ if you were listening to me—”

**_Aren’t you supposed to be in school?_** is the reply Peter gets.

** _Kind of can’t in this condition. Please answer the question._ **

Harley is still ranting. Peter isn’t listening, just waits, stares at his phone as the typing bubble appears, disappears, appears, disappears, and appears again, until: **_Fine. I’ll see what I can do._**

**_Thank you,_** Peter send quickly. **_I’ll be there in twenty minutes._**

“Okay, shut up,” Peter says, cutting off what he thinks was Harley complaining about the fact that Peter hadn’t been listening to a single words he was saying. “He said he’ll try to help us. We have to go.”

“Where?” Harley asks, apparently giving up on trying to fight this turn of events. “Where are we going?”

Peter pockets his phone and makes his way to the front door, hearing the scrambled footsteps as Harley clambers to his feet and follows after. “The Sanctum,” Peter tells him, waiting until they’re both in the hallway before locking the door to the apartment, feeling that lurch in his chest that he always feels when he leaves. “You better start believing in wizards real quick, ‘cause you’re about to meet one.”

Harley thinks he’s just losing his mind.

Like, this is probably some really realistic dream or something, right? Because the longer this goes on, the weirder it gets, and it’s to the point that Harley is sure the only place all this shit could actually exist is in his own imagination. Peter being Spider-Man—okay, sure, not totally out of the picture, since clips have shown that Spidey sounds pretty young, and there’s the whole internship at SI/clear bond between Spidey and Iron Man thing that draws a pretty clear connection. Plus, there have been a few times that Peter has sort of disappeared between classes on days that there just so happens to be some crazy attack in the city during school, and Spider-Man showing up at the fight always seems to line up with Peter’s vanishing act. So, sure, he never would have considered it before, but it’s not completely outlandish to believe.

The aunt thing makes sense, too, and kind of makes Harley feel like an asshole for silently seething at the word mayday for so long—correction, the two words, May and Day—when it’s an actually really shitty situation. Harley knows what it’s like to lose people, but to lose two sets of parents before you’re even eighteen? Harley thought his losses were bad, but he’s suddenly grateful for his mom in a way he hasn’t really been since his dad ran off when he was seven. It’s a _thank god you’re still around_ kind of gratitude, an almost childish pleading of never go, never leave, never die.

Still, all that aside, Harley draws the line at wizards and sorcery sanctums that look like something straight from a cheesy magic movie. Like, seriously, this place is—it’s otherworldly, ancient yet somehow perfectly in tact, and when Peter tugs him forward, the door swings open for them. He doubts a place this old has automatic doors, but that’s the only reason he can think of for it to do that.

“He said he’s busy,” Peter murmurs, talking mostly to himself, though Harley can hear him clear as day, just like he can hear the cat meowing two blocks away and the heartbeats of everyone within a three block radius. Another reason for Harley to be losing his mind—these hightened senses are driving him insane, the lights too bright and the fabric of his clothes far too scratchy and the fact that he can smell the garbage wafting from nearby dumpsters. Or, at least, he can until the door closes behind them, and then it’s quiet, everything cutting off suddenly, no smells, no distant sounds, the lights seeming to dim until they’re down to a reasonable level. Harley stumbles at the sudden change.

“Woah.”

Peter looks over his shoulder, lips twisted in some kind of knowing smile. “Yeah, Doc put some spells up to make this, like, a haven for my senses. Almost feels normal when I’m in here. Cool, right?”

Harley frowns, rubs at his eye and lets Peter continue to pull him through the building, past little statues and trinkets and unrecognizable things, odd looking thinks. “Doc?”

“The wizard,” Peter tells him. Then, to himself again, “Library, library, over—no, it’s over here—”

A sharp left, halfway up a flight of stairs before stopping and turning around, down a long corridor with locked doors that just seem ominous in a way that Harley can’t really explain. They take a right, another right, and Harley feels like they’re wondering aimlessly through a fucking maze, but then Peter lets out a cheer and rushes them forward, through a large pair of double doors, pushing them open with a skip in his step, and—wow, okay, the room behind the doors larger than what should be possible (the entire inside of this place is larger than what should be possible, really, because it didn’t look nearly this spacious and large from the outside) but it’s absolutely stunning, as well, shelves and walls filled with books, a skylight on the ceiling that lets natural light shine through, not too much to hurt his eyes but enough to give the room a nice sort of glow to it. The air smells of old books and paper. “Holy shit.”

Again, Peter sends Harley a knowing sort of look, then lets go of where he’d been holding onto Harley’s wrist and hops down the steps leading from the door to the floor of the library, calling out, “Doc? You here?” His voice doesn’t exactly echo, but it carries in the open room in a way that it didn’t before entering, and Harley just watches, still put off by seeing himself but feeling a little bit more adjusted to how weird it is, as Peter moves about the room, disappearing behind shelves and stacks of books and then reappearing in a completely different place. “This would be so much easier if I still had my hearing.”

Harley tilts his head at that, and realizes, suddenly, that—yeah, it is easier with Peter’s hearing, because Harley can hear two sets of heartbeats coming somewhere from their right. “That way,” he says, pointing in the direction of the sound as he makes his way down the steps as well.

Peter glances at him, brows quirking, before he nods once and sets off in that same direction. Not knowing what else to do, Harley just follows after him, and if he thought the rest of the building was a maze, this is a fucking labyrinth, impossible to navigate, though Peter seems to be handling it fine, weaving through the furniture and books with ease, only stopping to check with Harley that they’re going in the right direction, and maybe it’s because of how odd this place is, maybe he’s just feeling disoriented, but it seems like a minumum of five minutes goes by before they finally find whoever it is that Peter’s looking for—a tall man, who at first glance automatically fills in the definition of wizard to a tee, a magical sort of aura surrounding him and his unfairly perfect facial hair.

Like, actually, no—all of him. His hair is perfectly styled. There’s not a single crease in his clothes. He’s reading a book and leaning against a table that’s placed in what can only really be called a small clearing in the middle of the endless amount of shelves surrounding them. No way in hell is this a real person.

As soon as the man comes into sight, Peter is scrambling forward, slapping his hand on the table and exclaiming, “Mister Strange! Doc! Oh, Jesus, I’m so happy to see you right now, you gotta—you have to help us, we—I mean, okay, so, for starter’s, I don’t look like it, but I’m actually Peter, and that—” he jabs a thumb over his shoulder, where Harley is sort of hovering in uncertainty, “—is Harley, and we—I didn’t know this was even possible and I don’t know how it happened, but we woke up this morning in each other’s bodies and I’ve been freaking out and we had to go see May like this and—”

“Peter,” a firm voice says, but it doesn’t come from the tall man—Mister Strange?—who is staring down at Peter with wide, bewildered eyes. Instead, it comes from the other heartbeat that Harley heard, standing off to the side with his hands on his hips—a fucking teenager. Like, a junior, at most, wearing a white shirt and blue jeans and not at all looking like the kind of dude who would say someone’s name in as sharp a tone, sounding almost parental. “That’s not me.”

“Wh—” Peter steps back, eyes narrowed into a confused squint. “Billy? What’re you—?”

The boy, Billy (Harley hates learning peoples names), lets out the kind of sigh that only someone who’s lived a full life would make. “I am not Billy,” he says. His eyes flicker from Peter to Harley, something tired and exasperated in his gaze. “It seems that we are dealing with similar problems, then.”

Peter stares at Not-Billy for a long moment, then looks at Not-Mister-Strange, then back again. “You…?”

“Billy and I also awoke this morning in each other’s bodies,” Not-Billy explains. “Good news is, I believe we’ve figured out how it happened. Bad news it, we’re not quite sure if we can switch it back.”

“So, you are—”

“Sorcerer Supreme,” Stephen says.

Harley nods, brows furrowed at he glances between the teenager and the tall man that are apparently not in their own bodies, as well. He looks to the tall man—to Billy. “And you are—”

It looks odd, the youthful shuffle of feet and wringing of hands that this full grown man does, and his voice, though deep with age, also has a slightly nervous tinge to it as Billy answers, “I’m sort of his, like, protégé, or whatever. He’s teaching me to have better control over my abilities and stuff.”

“Sorcerers aren’t usually born able to do magic,” Stephen explains. “We learn, slowly, and we perfect it over time. Very rarely is anyone born with the ability to tap into the mystic arts. Billy, however, was born with more strength in his abilities than most can develop over a lifetime. As Sorcerer Supreme, it is my duty to assure that his abilities are controlled and not used to cause harm in the future.”

Slowly, Harley nods again, even though absolutely none of this makes any sort of sense. Peter is kicking his feet back and forth from where he’s sitting on top of the table, head tilting slightly to the side as he asks, “So, you said you think you know what happened?”

Billy ducks his head while Stephen clicks his tongue and answers with, “I believe Billy may have unintentionally cast a few spells during his training last night.”

“Okay, look—” Bill stops, voice defensive and sheepish as he slouches his shoulders and tries to make himself smaller, clearly not liking being the tallest one in the room. “I didn’t meant to, alright? Teddy and I watched Freaky Friday a few days ago and I just—I was just wondering what it would be like to switch bodies with someone for a week! I didn’t even realize I was casting anything!”

Despite the fact that his head is exploding, Harley can’t help but let out a snort. “Seriously?”

“I was just curious!” Billy says, throwing a hand in the air with a huff. “My powers kind of just—the only way I’ve been able to control them at all so far is by thinking of something I want to happen, and then it happens. Literally, before Doc started training me, Teddy kept buying me self help books ‘cause they were the only things that seemed to help at all, so, like—it’s stupid and I’m sorry, but apparently me thinking about a dumb movie is enough to make it happen, or whatever. It was an accident.”

“Hey, it’s fine, man,” Peter says, voice taking on a soothing tone once seeing the genuine distress twisting up Billy’s features. “You didn’t do it on purpose, right?” Then, to Stephen, “Right?”

With another sigh, Stephen nods, the action a bit curt, and explains, “Billy’s abilities, like I said, are stronger than most ever will be. With the proper training, I believe he will one day be the most powerful sorcerer there could be, and will likely take my place as Sorcerer Supreme whenever I’m no longer able to carry out my duties. What this means is that, although he was not trying to, the fact that he was thinking about this while training could have caused his abilities to act. I thought it was just us that had been effected, but one of you must have been near the sanctum around the same time for the spell to effect you, too. For whatever reason, it chose this to happen.”

“It wasn’t me,” Harley says. “I don’t think I’ve ever been near this place, like, at all.”

Peter frowns, before letting out a light gasp and saying, “Oh, shit, I was—I was on my way home last night, and I—I didn’t realize where I was, but I think I was swinging over the sanctum, when… shit, Karen shut down and my suit went offline, and I just—I just fell and got knocked out.”

Stephen hums. “That’s how the spell attached to you, then. But why Harley?”

“I was thinking about him,” Peter says slowly, brows furrowed.

Harley blinks at that, lips tugging down into a frown. “What? Why?”

“’Cause I asked you to stop purposefully running into me,” Peter answers, “and then you did it again at the end of school, and it pissed me off, and I just—I dunno, it popped into my head on my way home, and I was still thinking about it right before I fell. Is that—I mean, could that be it?”

“Magic works in odd ways,” Stephen says, looking deep in thought. “Without specific instruction, it likes to act on its own, make its own decisions. Since Billy never specified who would switch bodies with who, it likely attached to you, and decided to switch you with who you were thinking of. It makes sense.”

“None of this makes sense,” Harley grumbles.

No one responds to that. Instead, Peter leans forward, eyes intense and focused as he asks, “And, fixing it? You said—you said you don’t know if you can switch us back. What does that mean?”

With a slow, heavy exhale, Stephen looks between the three teens in front of them, a grimace on his features and something odd in his eyes. “It means,” he says, “that Billy didn’t specify people, but he did specify a time. And magic may be odd, but it likes to follow orders. So, by thinking of what it would be like to switch bodies with someone for a week, the spell became unbreakable. We cannot reverse this ourselves. Unfortunately, all of us will be stuck like this until the week runs out.”

“Can’t you just—” Harley flops a hand in the air. “Can’t you magic up a new spell to fix it now?”

“Not like this,” Stephen says grimly. “You have Peter’s abilities, correct?”

Harley huffs out a breath, arms crossing over his chest. “Yeah, so?”

“So, I have Billy’s abilities, and he has mine,” Stephen elaborates. “And in the time it would take to learn how to manage these new abilities and use them to reverse the spell, the week would already be over. There’s no other choice but to wait it out until the spell wears off by itself.”

Peter scrubs a hand over his features. “So, we’re stuck like this? For a week?”

Looking apologetic, Stephen just nods.

(“This _sucks,”_ Billy complains, after Harley and Peter have left. “You have back problems, man.”

Stephen doesn’t look up from where he’s scanning over the page of a book, trying to see if there’s any loophole that might be able to fix this sooner, even though he’s ninety nine percent sure there isn’t. “I woke up in a teenager’s body with your boyfriend trying to stick his hand down my pants,” he deadpans, a grimace forming on his face. “I think you can deal with my back problems for a few days.”

Billy winces, looking mortified and sheepish at the reminder. “Fair point.”)

They don’t speak until after the door to the apartment closes behind them. Even then, it isn’t until after Peter makes two mugs of hot chocolate and they both silently take a seat in the living room, and it’s a few minutes into sipping at their drinks that Peter asks, “So, how should we handle this, then?”

Harley grimaces down at his hot cocoa. “Hole ourselves in here until the week is over.”

“Can’t,” Peter says, sighing in a way that seems to hint towards the fact that he wishes they could. “There’s school, and Mister Stark might be leniant enough for a day or two, but he wouldn’t let me lock myself in here for a week. Did that once, and it didn’t end very well. Plus, your sister seems smart enough to notice if you vanish for several days in a row. We gotta figure something else out.”

There’s something that’s kind of hopeless and angry that crosses Harley’s features, so beyond frustrated and feeling the need to just snap. He bites his tongue, though, lets out a long, shaky breath, and says, “Okay, fine. Humor me, then. What do you suggest we do? Pretend to be each other?”

“I don’t think we have any other choice,” Peter tells him.

“There has to be,” Harley insists, having to put the mug of cocoa down because he wants to clench his fists but it would shatter the glass within seconds with Peter’s strength. “I’m nothing like you. Literally, fucking, nothing like Peter Parker, there’s no fucking way I can just—just fucking act like you. I barely even fucking know you! I don’t like you! I can’t do this!”

Peter clenches his jaw and closes his eyes. “We don’t have a choice, Harley,” he says, voice quiet and tense and strained. “We just… we have to teach each other about ourselves and make it work. Parent Trap style, but without the twins and the summer camp and shit.”

“So what, you asked me what we should do and then make the decision yourself?”

“You asked for my suggestion,” Peter says. “Can you think of something better?”

Harley huffs, leaning back in his seat, arms crossed over his chest. “Anything other than this.”

That seems to be last straw for Peter, so sets his own mug down with a little more force than necessary, probably more than intended as well, getting to his feet and pacing across the room before spinning around and throwing his hands in the air, exclaiming, “You think I want to do this? I fucking hate this! I hate the fact that this is happening! Do you even fucking—I’m _Spider-Man,_ Harley, and I can’t _be_ Spider-Man when we’re like this, and my aunt could _fucking die any fucking day_ and I can’t go see her when I’m _you!_ And I—I’m somehow lucky enough to have Tony and Pepper and Morgan and all of them as family, but they’re all I have left and I can’t go to them about this because there’s nothing they can do and there’s no point in stressing them out over this when they’ve already done so fucking much for me, and—shit—"

It’s a familiar spiral, one that Harley’s seen before, when he was twelve years old and a supposedly dead superhero broke into his garage. Peter’s chest is rapidly rising and falling, his breaths are starting to sort of whistle in the back of his throat, and his hands are shaking so badly that they’re a blur by his sides, clenching and unclenching into trembling fists. Harley sometimes wishes he was actually an asshole, because he doesn’t really want to have to deal with this right now, but he’s not a dick and he gets to his feet as soon as the spiral begins, crosses the room in four long strides and carefully, carefully, carefully grabs Peter by the wrist and pulls him back over to the couch, which Peter collapses on as soon as he’s within reach, a wheeze leaving him as he tries to breathe but can’t seem to get it right.

Harley remembers Tony having bone rattling panic attacks and thinks, a bit morbidly, _like father, like son._

“Okay,” he murmurs, lowering himself to sit next to Peter gingerly. “We’re just gonna breathe, okay? And it’s not gonna be fun, but it’ll get easier. Do you mind if I touch you?”

Peter squeezes his eyes shut, tugs his wrist out of Harley’s grasp, and pushes himself back into the corner of the sofa, looking more like a scared animal than anything else. “Don’t,” he chokes out, curling his knees up to his chest and burying his face in his knees. “I’m f—_fine.”_

Despite the situation, Harley rolls his eyes. “Yeah, you definitely seem fine, Parker. Just let me help.”

_“No.”_

Harley sighs, scrubbing a hand over his features and feeling on the brink of losing his shit. “Peter, seriously, you’re having a panic attack, you have to let me help—”

“I _know_ I’m having a panic attack,” Peter grits out, between the whistling inhales and wheezing exhales, his chest heaving with the effort to push the words out with so little air in his lungs. “’Ve had’em before, okay? The only—only person that can help is Tony and he—he’s not here, so just—just leave me alone.”

Throwing his hands in the air, Harley gives up and says, “Fine, whatever,” and shuffles over to the opposite side of the sofa, arms crossing over his chest as he sinks into the cushion and tries to pretend he isn’t hearing the rattle of Peter trying to even out his own breathing. It feels fundamentally wrong, sitting there and doing nothing, but Peter made it clear that he doesn’t want Harley’s help so he doesn’t interfere again, instead just counting the seconds until those seconds become minutes, tracking the time until Peter starts to breathe easier, almost ten minutes passing before he seems to fully calm down. Harley gives him another minute to catch his breath before deadpanning, “You good now?”

Peter huffs. “Fuck off. It’s not like you actually give a shit.”

There’s such a blunt, vacant sort of tone to his words that makes Harley stop, frowning a bit to himself as he looks at Peter, who is staring resolutely down at the coffee table with a distant look in his eyes. It’s not like he can dispute that, ‘cause Harley’s been kind of adamant in acting like he doesn’t give a shit, but he’s not heartless, no matter how hard he tries to give the impression that he is, and he does care, even when he doesn’t want to. It’s just the vulnerability of admitting that, the potential of it being used against him, how much caring always bites him in the ass, makes him regret caring at all.

And that’s the thing, really—Peter’s wrong. Harley does give a shit, probably cares too much about everything and everyone, but Harley will never admit that out loud. So, he doesn’t deny anything.

“You said you can get away with a day or two staying holed up in here, right?”

After a moment of silence, Peter sighs and nods. “Yeah. If I text Tony, he’ll let it slide.”

Harley nods, too, slowly, unsurely, thinking it over in his head. “Okay. As long as I text Abbie and let her now I’m alive, she’ll let Auntie Tanya know that I’m staying with a friend, or something, so I’ll be good for a day or two, too. Question is, is missing school really problem for you? 'Cause I don't know how to make that work if it is."

“I mean…” Peter trails off, frowning. “I’d rather not, but going as you would pose an issue, so…”

“So, you’re willing to miss school,” Harley clarifies.

Peter shrugs. “I wouldn’t be able to go to my classes, so I don’t see the point in going at all. I don't want to randomly skip a week, though. I have an attendance record."

Harley gnaws on his lower lip, rolling ideas around in his mind. “Okay. So, find excuses to miss school for a week that won't result in getting detention or just... suck it up and go to school as each other, spend a day or two here figuring out how to _be_ each other, and… and try to be believable until we’re ourselves again. Is that a good enough plan for you?”

A lapse of silence, and then a slow, careful sigh. “It has to be, right?”

With a snort, Harley says, “Yeah, I guess.”

“So,” Peter says, and, for some reason, it feels like giving up. “Where do we start?”

**Author's Note:**

> yell at me on tumblr @ spidey-lad


End file.
